【推荐3】My mother-in-law left us an unexpected and priceless gift. After she died, my husband and his sister were going through the contents of her house when they discovered every letter we’d written to her during our 46-year marriage. She also kept all the letters my mother had written to her over the years.

During my holidays, I’ve had time to go through these letters. I read about our early married life, our struggle to have children and. especially the progress of our three children from birth to adulthood. I began writing all these details for my children, and now they have details about when they were small. I discovered much I’d forgotten.

To read the letters written by my mother to my husband’s mother is a gift. I wish I’d saved my mother’s letters to me, but now I have these letters that tell me things about my own mother I never knew. I see Mom and Mamma shared their great love for us and for our children.

I come from a long line of letter writers and was trained to stay in touch with our parents. My grandparents loved to receive letters from across the ocean. When I was away on a student exchange in 1970, my mother told me my grandfather kept my airmail letters in his pocket and read them daily. Knowing this, I’ve tried my best to write to our family regularly.

To all of you who write to me. I thank you. The handwritten word is a powerful tool of friendship and it connects us together. Perhaps the greatest gift these letters have given me is to see how much my husband’s parent treasured our letters to her. The letters helped her know her grandchildren and feel like part of our lives. I shall collect and arrange them for my children so that they can read the events of our lives and know they were treasured, too.

Keep writing to those you love. Those letters are our greatest gifts to each other.

【推荐1】Jimmy is an automotive mechanic (汽车修理技工), but he lost his job a few months ago. He has a good heart, but always feared applying for a new job.

One day, he gathered up all his strength and decided to attend a job interview. His appointment was at 10 a.m. and it was already 8:30. While waiting for a bus to the office where he was supposed to be interviewed, he saw an elderly man wildly kicking the tyre of his car. Obviously there was something wrong with the car. Jimmy immediately went up to lend him a hand. When Jimmy finished working on the car, the old man asked him how much he should pay for the service. Jimmy said there was no need to pay him; he just helped someone in need, and he had to rush for an interview. Then the old man said, “Well, I could take you to the office for your interview. It’s the least I could do. Please, I insist.” Jimmy agreed.

Upon arrival, Jimmy found a long line of applicants waiting to be interviewed. Jimmy still had some grease (油渍) on him after the car repair, but he did not have much time to wash it off or have a change of shirt. One by one, the applicants left the interviewer’s office with disappointed looks on their faces. Finally his name was called.   The interviewer was sitting on a large chair facing the office window. Rocking the chair back and forth, he asked, “Do you really need to be interviewed?” Jimmy’s heart sank. “With the way I look now, how could I possibly pass this interview?” He thought to himself.

Then the interviewer turned the chair and to Jimmy’s surprise, it was the old man he helped earlier in the morning. It turned out that he was the General Manager of the company.

“Sorry I had to keep you waiting, but I was pretty sure I made the right decision to have you as part of our workforce (职工) before you even stepped into this office. I just know you’d be a trustworthy worker. Congratulations!” Jimmy sat down and they shared a cup of well-deserved coffee as he landed himself a new job.

【推荐3】What makes a gift special? Is it the price you see on the gift receipt? Or is it the look on the recipient’s face when they receive it that determines the true value? What gift is worth the most?

This Christmas I was debating what to give my father. My dad is a hard person to buy for because he never wants anything. I pulled out my phone to read a text message from my mom saying that we were leaving for Christmas shopping for him when I came across a message on my phone that I had locked. The message was from my father. My eyes fell on a photo of a flower taken in Wyoming, and underneath a poem by William Blake. The flower, a lone dandelion (蒲公英) standing against the bright blue sky, inspired me. My dad had been reciting those words to me since I was a kid. That may even be the reason why I love writing. I decided that those words would be my gift to my father.

I called back. I told my mom to go without me and that I already created my gift. I sent the photo of the cream-colored flower to my computer and typed the poem on top of it. As I was arranging the details another poem came to mind. The poem was written by Edgar Allan Poe; my dad recited it as much as he did the other. I typed that out as well and searched online for a background to the words of it. The poem was focused around dreaming, and after searching I found the perfect picture. The image was painted with blues and greens and purples, twisting together to create the theme and wonder of a dream. As I watched both poems passing through the printer, the white paper coloring with words that shaped my childhood, I felt that this was a gift that my father would truly appreciate.

Christmas soon arrived. The minute I saw the look on my dad’s face as he unwrapped those black letters carefully placed in a cheap frame, I knew I had given the perfect gift.

【推荐3】As an only child, Nicole Renae often felt lonely in her youth. But that all changedwhen she turned ten. For her birthday, Renae’s grandmother surprised her with anadorable gray puppy named Chloe.

From the very start, the two were inseparable. Chloe would lick Renae’s face forever unless stopped. But when Renae was 14, her father got a new band worked from home. Then the house needed to be free of distractions. “Chloe was very noisy,” Renae says. “With no easier option, my family had to surrender Chloe to a humane society.”

In time, Renae grew up, got married, and had a child of her own. Remembering the joy that having a dog had brought her as a kid, Renae wanted her daughter to experience the same. She had it in her mind that she would one day adopt a puppy, but then she saw a post on Facebook about a senior dog that needed a new home. The dog in the photograph looked a lot like Chloe, and she was even named Chloe. In an instant it was decided that she would adopt this older dog.

When she met Chloe, Renae was struck with an uncanny (离奇的) feeling. The dog seemed so familiar. “She ran up to me and started licking my face,” she says. Chloe reminded Renae so much of her old dog that the emotion overwhelmed her. “I was crying,” Renae says. “I just knew in my heart that it was her.” Still, eight years had passed since Renae had seen Chloe last, so the thought seemed to be little more than wishful thinking. “My whole family thought I was nuts,” Renae says.

But Renae’s mom realized there was a way to test the theory: Their Chloe had been microchipped as a puppy. They found the ID number, then Renae took her new Chloe to the vet to be scanned. Sure enough, she also had a microchip.

“The numbers were a match,” Renae says. Renae was overjoyed to have Chloe back. “She knows that she’ll be with me forever.”